‘Wrapped Bitcoin’ Will Trade on Ethereum Blockchain

Bitcoin (BTC) on the Ethereum blockchain? According to a blog post from Loi Luu of KyberNetwork, yes indeed.

KyberNetwork, working with Republic Protocol and BitGo, created the wrapped bitcoin, or WBTC, which will be traded on the Ethereum blockchain and be tied directly to the value of bitcoin.

“First off, Kyber will provide initial liquidity for WBTC tokens through our reserve, so that it can be exchanged like any other supported ERC20 token on our protocol,” wrote Luu. “At launch, together with Republic Protocol, we will serve as initial merchants to provide a platform for KYC’d [know your customer] users to atomically swap between BTC and WBTC tokens.”

He adds that users can “swap tokens instantly across many interfaces, while developers can build innovative payment flows and applications, including token swap services, ERC20 payments, and financial DApps, helping to build a world where any token is usable anywhere.”